Israeli Student's Android Hacking App Could Hijack Computers

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A young Israeli security researcher has developed a new free
Android app tool that, in the wrong hands, could give novice
hackers a chance to launch attacks and hijack targeted computers
with the simple push of a button.

The "Anti" app, short for Android Network Toolkit, will hit the
Android market next week, according to Itzhak "Zuk" Avraham, the
app's developer, who revealed the details of his hacking tool at
last week's DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas.

Anti has a Wi-Fi scanning feature to detect vulnerable devices on
nearby networks, and software to reveal the IP addresses of
servers. Anti's easy-to-use screen shows a menu of options,
including "Man-in-the-Middle" (which lets users eavesdrop on
nearby devices) and "Attack."

The founder of Tel-Aviv-based security firm Zimperium, and still
a university student, Avraham designed Anti as a
penetration-testing tool to search out vulnerabilities in systems
and programs so they can be fixed, Forbes' Andy Greenberg
reported.

"#Anti just found a remotely exploitable computer in the wild.
Wow. This will make the world a safer place," Avraham wrote in an
Aug. 6 Twitter post.

"Even in its current form, the app raises the possibility of
dangerous, stealthy attacks," Greenberg wrote. "A hacker could,
for instance, walk into a coffee shop or a corporate office with
his phone and start sussing out machines for data theft or
malware infection."

Last year, an app developer introduced " Firesheep,"
a free Firefox add-on that allowed its users to view cookies sent
over public Wi-Fi networks and gain unauthorized access to
computers. Like Anti, Firesheep was touted as a tool to highlight
the security gaps of popular websites and the insecurity of
public Wi-Fi networks.

Naturally, hackers quickly adopted "Firesheep," and it took
another tool, FireShepherd, to put Firesheep out to pasture.